Run, Rose, Run is a companion album that works surprisingly well on its own, imperfect but better than a James Patterson collab has any right…
The only thing Better than You proves is that DaBaby and YoungBoy are better at putting out mid-tier music than most. The title of DaBaby…
Lil Durk To say that Lil Durk had a big 2021 would be something of an understatement. In actuality, the year was a pretty momentous…
Skin offers a refinement on Ho99o9’s particular style, but doesn’t move beyond that mode of genre synthesis to anything more substantial. Committed to the bit…
For some time, and even still, the accepted critical narrative regarding Spike Lee’s 25th Hour positioned the film as one of the significant peaks in…
Polar Bear is a pleasing visual document and marks something of a welcome pivot for Disneynature, but still boasts a low ceiling thanks to the…
Charlotte is another anonymous effort on the Holocaust film heap that has now idea what to do with Jewish pain. Éric Warin and Tahir Rana’s animated…
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 doesn’t offer much for either the fetish crowd or kids looking for unencumbered adventure spectacle. Ever since bursting onto the scene in…
Unbearable Weight is the latest high-concept, one-joke movie, but it’s thankfully a funny enough joke to justify the film’s existence. Nicolas Cage is Nicolas Cage —…
The Bad Guys is an energetic crowd-pleaser with some inspired animation, but it’s hampered by lazy storytelling and an overreliance on meta-ness and winking reference. Based…
Stanleyville is a toothless comedy that fails to fill in the considerable gaps in its conceptual framework. Maxwell McCabe-Lokos’ Stanleyville confines itself to a single room,…
Petite Maman is both Sciamma’s most intimate and epic work, a gently profound fable about youth’s uneasy passage into adulthood. Celine Sciamma’s characters have always existed…
The Duke is an absurdist romp balanced by Michell’s trademark ease, and a fitting swan song for the director. As the final narrative feature from celebrated…
Onoda, 10,000 Nights in the Jungle Every pronouncement that points to a Second Coming ruptures the human sense of linear temporal experience, pulling one out…
Real-life subtext melds effortlessly with easy, endearing comedy in Panah Panahi’s Hit the Road. Sam Levinson, Jaden Smith, Jake Gyllenhaal, Maya Hawke, and Bryce Dallas Howard:…
Virus: 32 isn’t reinventing the zombie film wheel, but its careful attention to craft and precise formalism mark this effort near the head of the class.…
By all accounts, Raekwon’s Only Built 4 Cuban Linx… Pt. II should have been a complete failure. Delayed for almost four years (routinely a tell-tale…
Dual is delightfully off-kilter and funny enough to keep the viewer’s attention, but is undermined by its failures of internal logic and a general impression of…
Sexual Drive draws the straightest possible line between food and sex, never striving for anything deeper or more creative than basic simile. For nearly as long…
If its title wasn’t a giveaway, Marvelous and the Black Hole is a quirk-heavy comedy that approaches authenticity in moments, only to retreat back into its…
The Secret of Dumbledore is yet another bloated franchise entry that further flattens the Wizarding World’s profoundly diminished appeal. It’s 2022 and whatever magic a new…